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Want to talk about sensors that don't quite fit into any of our tech-specific groups? This is the place to post! From temperature and humidity to airflow and pressure sensors, there are many environmental sensing tools that can add valuable data to core conservation monitoring technologies. With the increasing availability of low-cost, open-source options, we've seen growing interest in integrating these kinds of low bandwidth sensors into existing tools. What kinds of sensors are you working with?

discussion

Interview for Technologies in Conservation

Nikolas

24 November 2022 10:07am

Dear Wildlabs community, my name is Nikolas and I am a Master's Student from Lisbon. Like many of you, I grew up with a great passion for the wildlife that we are surrounded...

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Carly Batist

16 January 2023 2:42pm

I'd be happy to chat with you if you wanted! My expertise is within passive acoustic monitoring particularly. The Conservation Tech Directory might be useful for you in identifying relevant actors within the space.

Pen-Yuan Hsing

17 January 2023 5:12pm

My original background is in ecology and conservation, and am now in the elected leadership of the Gathering for Open Science Hardware which convenes researchers developing open source tech for science. I am not working on a specific piece of technology right now, but am happy to contribute some higher-level views for your interview if that helps.

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Link

New paper - Real-time alerts from AI-enabled camera traps using the Iridium satellite network: A case-study in Gabon, Central Africa

Carly Batist

13 January 2023 12:12am

Sending real-time alerts from ecological sensors such as camera traps in areas with poor data connectivity is complex and involves integrating a large number of potentially complex hardware and software components. Our results demonstrate that these components can be...

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https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/2041-210X.14036
discussion

Help - Innovative ways to track elephant movement

Tyler Nuckols

28 October 2022 4:50pm

Hi, I am working on a study to track wild elephant movement within an overlayed matrix of crop fields. We seek to understand how various landscape variables impact crop-raiding...

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Peter Apps

4 November 2022 5:24pm

Why would you want to avoid alerting the rangers ?

You don't need high tech for this; elephants leave very obvious tracks and sign. 

Kim Lane

7 November 2022 12:52am

Hi Tyler,

Would like to introduce you to Ceres Tags products

  • Ceres Tags products come in boxes of 5, 10 and 24. 
  • There are some software partners such as Earthranger, Mapipedia and possibly CiboLabs that would be able to assist you with your mapping vegetation requirements
  • Ceres Tag does not require any towers, base stations and infrastructure. This allows you to see any movements from the heard outside of their normal herd (boundary alerts), and you will not be disturbing any of the flora and fauna with infrastructure set up. 
  • For the timing you are looking at, Ceres Wild pings directly to satellite 24 times a day. For Ceres Trace and Ceres Ranch there are 4 within 24 hours. Taking into consideration, when you set up alert areas, you will get them directly to your phone/laptop via your software of choice
  • Ceres Ranch is a reusable tag that has just been launched. Use it on this project, remove the tag and then use the tag on your next project
  • The software you choose will assist with the history of your animal movements. Ceres Tag is integrated with 11 software partners and in-development with 18 software partners https://cerestag.com/pages/software-partners
  • Understanding it is a short-term project, you would be able to use Ceres Tags products without the additional expense of setting up and removing infrastructure- towers, gateways
  • With Ceres Tag, you are purchasing the box of tags and picking a suitable software to deliver the information you require. On average, a box of 10 Ceres Trace Tags, is the same as 1 LoRaWAN tower. 
https://www.wildlabs.net/discussion/live-qa-discussion-ceres-tag-animal-monitoring-solution

 

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careers

Junior Electrical Engineer (Hardware)

Lindsay Starke

9 December 2022 5:04pm

As the FieldKit hardware ecosystem grows, Conservify is seeking a Junior Electrical Engineer to assist with testing, troubleshooting, prototype development, and developing production test fixtures for our growing...

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careers

Senior Software Engineer

Lindsay Starke

9 December 2022 5:01pm

Conservify is seeking a hands-on Senior Software Engineer with front end and back end experience developing rich web and mobile applications, and a strong desire to build a best-in-class product that stands out in both...

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discussion

Cameras - pros and cons

Tom August

21 September 2022 2:04pm

So, what makes a good camera for an autonomous camera trap for insects?We use a web camera in our system, which seems to work well a lot of the time, it produces...

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Maximilian Sittinger

23 November 2022 2:58pm

Hi Liz, unfortunately you will still need a Raspberry Pi as host for the OAK-1 camera to reproduce our hardware setup. It's also possible to use another Linux-based system (e.g. Raspberry Pi alternatives), but I didn't test this myself and the setup process will be different to our documentation (and probably not so straightforward). I'm planning to publish the documentation website in the next weeks, but I can already send you detailed information about putting together the hardware if you are still interested.

Hubert Szczygiel

7 December 2022 1:03am

Hello,

 

I'm working on a light weight light trap based on Bjerge et al 2021, however I opted to use an ArduCam 64mp (9152 x 6944 resolution). Designed for the pi specifically and at $60 it checks many of your criteria. I haven't put everything together yet so I can't speak for white balance and power usage, but the autofocus appears to work well from initial tests, and it is tiny.

 

Cheers,

Hubert

Tom August

8 December 2022 4:06pm

Awesome! it would be great to hear how you get on, maybe you can share your results here when you have them. Is the camera only for the Pi? That could be a problem for scaling as Pis are quite hard to come by at the moment.

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discussion

Rainforest SigFox available for use

Roland Kays

26 August 2022 6:09pm

Hi EveryoneJust FYI that right now we now have a SigFox gateway running to create an IoT network at the Los Amigos field station in lowland Peruvian Amazon.  Amazing forest,...

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Carly Batist

26 September 2022 10:20pm

Hi Roland,

This is really amazing, great to hear about your set-up! I'm just wondering what the overall cost was to set up this system? Just thinking in terms of setting up something similar in other parks and what they should expect with regard to price. Would also be great to hear about the overall effort, e.g., hours/team members required. It would be great to have this act as a blueprint for other organizations/research stations wishing to deploy a similar system within their respective national parks/areas/etc.! 

Antoine Ede

10 October 2022 8:33am

Hi Rolland,

Interested too, but why did you choose SigFox (a private network) rather than LoRa (open network)? 

Sigfox currently has some financial troubles that, don't know what it will become in the long term.

Roland Kays

18 October 2022 11:55am

Hi Everyone,

We chose sigfox becuase it seems to have better range and is plug-play, whereas LoRa requires more custom programming and updating.  Getting a gateway cost us $2000 for a year's lease + deposit. We covered solar power.  There are also some 'minigateways' you can purchase but I don't know how they compare in range (plan to test).  So far we are happy with the performance, in that it has worked consistency with no outages  (once we stabilized the power supply).  I think the annual costs are about $10 per tag.  We are working on a paper that will describe this in more detail.  So far just using for tracking tags but also looking at a trap sensor.

cheers

Roland

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Link

New paper: Benthic animal-borne sensors & citizen science combine to validate ocean modelling

Carly Batist

10 October 2022 4:15pm

"We develop the use of benthic species as animal oceanographers by combining archival (depth, temperature) data from animal-borne tags, passive acoustic telemetry & citizen-science mark-recapture records for the flapper skate in Scotland."

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Read "Benthic animal-borne sensors and citizen science combine to validate ocean modelling | Scientific Reports" on Nature

Benthic animal-borne sensors and citizen science combine to validate ocean modelling | Scientific Reports

Developments in animal electronic tagging and tracking have transformed the field of movement ecology, but interest is also growing in the contributions of tagged animals to oceanography. Animal-borne sensors can address data gaps, improve ocean model skill and support model validation, but previous studies in this area have focused almost exclusively on satellite-telemetered seabirds and seals. Here, for the first time, we develop the use of benthic species as animal oceanographers by combining archival (depth and temperature) data from animal-borne tags, passive acoustic telemetry and citizen-science mark-recapture records from 2016–17 for the Critically Endangered flapper skate (Dipturus intermedius) in Scotland. By comparing temperature observations to predictions from the West Scotland Coastal Ocean Modelling System, we quantify model skill and empirically validate an independent model update. The results from bottom-temperature and temperature-depth profile validation (5,324 observations) fill a key data gap in Scotland. For predictions in 2016, we identified a consistent warm bias (mean = 0.53 °C) but a subsequent model update reduced bias by an estimated 109% and improved model skill. This study uniquely demonstrates the use of benthic animal-borne sensors and citizen-science data for ocean model validation, broadening the range of animal oceanographers in aquatic environments.

Nature
discussion

Mangrove soundscape

Camilo Sierra F.

27 August 2022 4:57pm

Hello everyone, I am currently working on the restoration of mangroves in an area of Colombia. I want to do an acoustic monitoring inside the mangrove. I want to record...

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Carly Batist

29 August 2022 2:47pm

You might check out the devices listed in the Conservation Tech Directory - you can search for 'acoustic recorder' or 'ARU' or something like that.

The most common off-the-shelf models (other than Frontier Labs' BARLTs mentioned above😊) are Open Acoustic Devices Audiomoths & Hydromoths (which may be particularly useful for you since they come in completely watertight cases that can be stuck underwater for deployments), Wildlife Acoustics' SongMeter series, and Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Swift units.  

 

David Savage

30 August 2022 10:10pm

Camilo--

Are you interested only in airborne sounds or do you want to deploy hydrophones? That decision would inform a lot of other decisions about your purchase of equipment, as would having a clearer picture of your budget.

Liz Ferguson

23 September 2022 5:39pm

Hi there Camilo, 

What an interesting project! If you are looking for a lower cost, but effective tools for acoustic monitoring you might want to look into two options: 

SoundTraps - are very commonly used and perform quite well: 

SonarPoints - these are also a great instrument option: 

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discussion

Avian nest box monitoring 

jasonsali

14 September 2022 2:30pm

Hi. I’m hoping there’s a guru out there who can advise on tech for monitoring conditions inside avian nest boxes? Links to data loggers and endoscopes they’ve used successfully...

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jasonsali

14 September 2022 3:08pm

Maybe this is a starting point. Any idea if this product would work inside the box. Kestrel DROP D3 Wireless Temperature, Humidity & Pressure Data Logger https://amzn.eu/d/5VdQwtA  

Colin Cook

23 September 2022 12:34pm

I'd be interested in any camera monitoring setups that can be used inside a nest box. Most camera traps are too bulky for this purpose. All the devices I've looked at either need a wired connection or a wifi network to transmit images. I want one that can store all info to an SD card and preferably be solar powered. Obviously infrared or starlight sensitivity. Sound recording would be a bonus for some bird monitoring I want to do.

Nigel Butcher

23 September 2022 1:16pm

Done lots of this over the years and it depends on the species really. If you want incubation behaviour  and hence success or otherwise using temperature then the Thermocron IButton DS1921G is perfect. The new Blue Maestro is an option I became aware of this year but I haven't tested at scale.

In terms of cameras and endoscopes I've tailored many off the shelf products and built a few from scratch. When I get chance I'll have a look around and see what is still available.

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discussion

Virtual fencing / Kinetic energy harvesting / Holistic grazing

David Blažević

16 June 2022 7:12am

Hi everyone, Stephanie invited me to share some recent developments in Finalnd.I'm David and I'm a mechanical engineer from Rijeka, Croatia, working as a Marie Curie postdoc at...

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Lars Holst Hansen

31 July 2022 5:15pm

I see, thanks!

One daily fix is quite limiting.

Do you have an idea how KEH might affect accelerometry?

Cheers,

David Blažević

2 September 2022 11:05am

I don't think KEH would influence accelerometry at all.

One other way to think about it is - the KEH is a movement sensor itself.

The GPS is quite a severe factor in the energy balance of the system, so if the data is perhaps not transmitted constantly, more frequent locks could be achieved. I believe GPS transceivers are becoming more and more efficient and the KEH enabled GPS should become an option soon.

 

Kr,

D-

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article

Ceres Wild Rhino application 

Kim Lane

22 August 2022 1:29am

An update on Ceres Tags products that are being used in conservation 

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Kim Lane

29 September 2022 4:05am

Some updates and a news report on the Malilangwe Trust application of devices; Ceres Trace and Ceres Wild
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